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posted by
martyb
on Wednesday December 12 2018, @12:37PM
from the Third-Verse-Same-As-The-First dept.
from the Third-Verse-Same-As-The-First dept.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-46509288
"Prime Minister Theresa May has called off Tuesday's crucial vote on her Brexit deal so she can go back to Brussels and ask for changes to it.
"As it stands the deal 'would be rejected by a significant margin' if MPs voted on it, she admitted."
The biggest stumbling block appears to be the issue between Ireland and Northern Ireland. In particular, what the borders will look like in terms of what people and goods will need to do or not do in order to cross it.
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Brexit Status Once Again in Limbo
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The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 3, Insightful) by iamjacksusername on Wednesday December 12 2018, @04:55PM (6 children)
Is Brexit good or bad for the UK? Long-term, it depends. Short-term, it is cataclysmically bad for a fairly small group of wealthy people who have spent the last 60 years profiting from low-tariff, low-friction international trade.
What Brexit in the UK, and Trump's election in the US, represents is the awareness from a large group of people of how much wealth has been taken from them by this relatively small group. They know that, while free trade may be good for the whole, it has been nothing but bad for them. The H-O model of international trade tracks with the experience of the last 50 years. Returns on Investment have outpaced Returns on Labor in every major technologically advanced nation. The Returns of Labor have been transferred to the less developed trading nations.
Anybody who has spent time in the old industrial towns of England or in the mid-west of the United States can give a first hand description of what 50 years of relentless wealth transfer looks like. It looks like the death of hope. People may not "know" the economic terms for what is happening but they can recognize when it is happening; to quote somebody else, "I've been around long enough to know how ignorant I am. I don't assume the universe obeys my preconceptions, but I know a frelling fact when it hits me in the face."
These voters have decided to hold the rest of the country hostage through Brexit because that is the only way they know they will ever have anybody pay attention to their situation. They know the platitudes of politicians and the protestations of "just be patient" and "racism" is just sophistry designed to disarm them. They have collectively decided to shoot the hostage if they do not get what they want.
Maybe something will come of it; or, maybe this is their last gasp.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NewNic on Wednesday December 12 2018, @06:16PM (5 children)
Yeah, those people in Sunderland will really benefit when Nissan shuts down the assembly line there.
Those who voted for Brexit were lied to.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 3, Insightful) by rleigh on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:58PM (3 children)
While I certainly hope that it's not shut down, there's another side to this. Do you think it's acceptable for a single company to blackmail an entire nation purely for its own supply chain convenience? There are hundreds of thousands of companies in the UK. The vast majority do not trade internationally, they trade domestically. And yet, they are tied to obey EU rules put into UK law, despite not selling their goods into the EU. And they are the vast majority of employers in the UK. Your argument is that globalism is more important, but it's being used as a justification for screwing over the vast majority of workers in this country. Why should Nissan get special treatment? They employ a lot of people, certainly. But overall it's quite small compared with the number employed by the thousands of small companies out there. And yet, all these small companies have zero representation at the highest levels of government while the likes of Nissan do. It's not fair or equitable, and nor is it democratic when the nation as a whole voted to leave the EU. The needs of a small number of globalist interests should not thwart democracy.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Wednesday December 12 2018, @11:10PM (2 children)
1. Most people work for large companies, all of which trade internationally to some degree.
2. You have to show that the overall balance of EU membership is bad even for small companies that do not trade internationally. I think that the impact of EU membership on small companies is either positive or very slightly negative.
They should not. But neither should the people who depend on Nissan and who voted for Brexit.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Thursday December 13 2018, @09:09AM (1 child)
This is wrong. Most people *don't* work for large companies. The vast majority of workers in the country are, and always have been, sole traders and small businesses. This has become even more true with zero-hours contracts and "gig" jobs, where contractors are the norm.
The misplaced prioritisation of "big" businesses over everyone else is one of the travesties of our time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13 2018, @09:53AM
This is laughable, and only true on paper. The gig economy is all about low-income people working multinational corporations, receiving peanuts for salary and even less job security.
I agree that the misplaced prioritisation of "big" businesses is a travesty, but the gig economy is a part of that, not the solution.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday December 12 2018, @10:03PM
I don't think GP's post tells the whole story but there is some truth to it. However, you missed the point.
Of course, the suits are always in a position to make the peons feel the pain when the suits don't get their way. That is how their sales pitch always works. "Do what we want, and you may get some table scraps. Try to tax or regulate us... and we will lay people off, we will relocate, we will sue, and your retirement money (that we had laws written to incentivize you to put into the stock market) will shrink."
The peons went along with this until now. Now some peons are saying "enough is enough, we're going to burn down your mansion even if it means the fire may spread to our shanty."